Most sit-down restaurants and hotels in Singapore add a 10% service charge plus GST, often shown on the menu as “++” after the price. Tipping is not part of local culture, and hawker centres and food courts — where a huge amount of everyday eating happens — add no service charge and have no tipping norm at all.
No additional tip is expected once the 10% service charge is on the bill, though leaving a little extra for outstanding service is appreciated, not required. Taxi drivers don't expect tips and won't round up your change unless you ask them to keep it. Airport staff at Changi are actually not permitted to accept tips.
If you want to reward exceptional service anyway, small and discreet is the norm: S$1-2 per bag for a bellhop, or rounding a taxi fare up by a couple of dollars. This is a genuine gesture rather than an expected top-up, unlike Dubai's service charge, which usually still expects a tip on top.
More on how automatic service charges work in general →
PayNow, Singapore's instant bank-transfer system, is how most locals split bills and pay each other back, but it generally requires a Singapore bank account or NRIC to set up, so it isn't practical for most visitors. Contactless cards and mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay are accepted almost everywhere instead, including hawker centres, so there's no real gap for a tourist to worry about.
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